My father spend a lot of time after retiring in the 1980’s researching the family tree. He traced the male line back to 1546.

The origin of the name “Pitcock”

The following was written by my father in 1990:

WHY THE CHANGE TO PITCOCK?

At present there are three groups of PITCOCKS.

One of them is the group from my great grandfather THOMAS

WILLIAM P. (The history for his change to PITCOCK is given below ).

A SECOND is from a family in Leeds whose great grandfather BENJAMIN must have had his name changed in much the same accidental fashion.

The other is the family of an American soldier who married a Welsh girl in 1944.

None of the second or third groups has a telephone number and I have not established an address for them.

With regard to our own changed name from PIDCOCK the situation appears to be that my great grandfather THOMAS WILLIAM was bapt. PIDCOCK(E) and called himself PIDCOCK on the census returns of 1861 and 1871.

His signature in the parish register of 1862 on the occasion of his marriage was in somewhat uneven writing “Thomas Wm P….” and could perhaps be most logically read as PILCOCK with “il” joined in a loop at the bottom but without the “i” dotted. The mar. cert., or copy of it, held in the local civil registry office must, judging from the copy supplied to me, have been read as PITCOCK.

T.W.’s wife JANE could not read but she had signed her name HALLING, even if without the “H”, at her marriage. JANE had signed with “X” birth cerftificate of her first child GEORGE in 1864. JANE probably took her marriage certificate along to have the “correct” name given to her children. As soon as T.W.died, Jane entered PITCOCK on the census 1881.

Their son GEORGE intermittently continued to spell it PIDCOCK until 1909 that is 47 years after the initial “error” including all known electoral rolls. However GEORGE signed the church register on his marriage 1890 as PITCOCK in quite good copperplate. Two of GEORGE’s children ADA 1897 and Caroline in 1901 were baptised as PIDCOCK though both these and all other children are shown as PITCOCK in the civil registers.

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Looking at the family tree I notice there have been many large families:
my daughter is an only child I am one of 5 then there were:
(going up the male line) 4, 12, 6 , 4, 8, 9, 4, 11, 13 (in the 1600’s).

In 1998 there was a gathering in the black-country of over 100 decendents of George Pitcock (b1864), most I hadn’t met before.

There are only a few dozen Pitcocks in Britain but hundreds in USA where the name also seems to have been a corruption of others.

I am working on a suitable format for putting a more detailed family tree on this site

I haven’t taken an active interest in my family tree for several years.